StephanieShine’s BodyBlog

This morning woke up feeling well rested and optimistic. I bought Vitamin Water Rescue Green Tea for $1.49 and sipped that while doing some urgent morning things at the registrar office and the library. Then I sat down for a proper breakfast of plain Chobani greek yogurt with a scoop of whey protein mixed in. I bought the greek yogurt yesterday for $1.39

For a free lunch in the dining commons, I had a cucumber salad overloaded with chickpeas and kidney beans with sunflower seeds and probably too much Light Ranch. I topped it off with 2 pieces of my grandma’s fudge as a treat. Instead of a traditional dinner, I snacked my way through 5 pm. I had a serving of Sara Lee Chicken Breast. Tasted great, not too watery, not too salty. I paid $3.49 for a half pound, so a little expensive. I was upset that Shaw’s has Wild Harvest Turkey at the deli, but not chicken. My consience got the best of me and I went searching for both the Wild Harvest and Sara Lee poultry suppliers and found nothing. If I am going to be eating expensive chicken then it better well have had a great life!

As I got hungry throughout the night I snacked on an Atkins bar, which tasted incredibly processed. I also had some fair trade, organic white tea. I usually like green tea, but this one was good. I will probably have another cup later. To end my dinner grazing I had an ounce of roasted peanuts. I’d rather have them raw, and roasted was all I had in the dorm. Only got to about half my protein intake so far. I need to pay more attention to having protien with each meal - Atleast 25 grams! Carbs are a little higher than I would like and fat is low-moderate. That single Atkins bar had 10 grams! Good thing that was the last one.

Non-Nutrition Related: I recycled the vitamin water bottle and the peanuts were bought in bulk. Unfortunately the Chobani containers aren’t recyclable and dont have a lid so they are harder to reuse. The Atkins bar came individually wrapped, but I recycled the box and the pamphlet that came with it. I couldn’t find out where my chicken dinner came from. I should have looked into the source and price before buying it. And not that $1.49 is alot, I could have spent exaclty that on some more high-protein chobani! The tea bags that I bought end up being only .16 cents per bag and I often use the bags twice.

Day 6 - Monday

I did not feel thin this morning. Not at all. It’s a disappointment to see, but a great motivator for breakfast and the rest of the day.  Great - got my period tonight. That’s going to severely mess up the weigh in.

Day 7 - Tuesday

Woke up at the guys house. Only slept 2 hours so I def wasn’t getting up for my 8 am class. Slept in another hour then had a regular breakfast with the guy, but it felt so big - like it was too much and I was being selfish by eating it all. My grandma sent me an easter package!!!! I have to write her a thank you letter. Fell right alseep after the biggest loser.

It’s the end of this weeks cycle and I lost more than 2 lbs. My muscle mass and water are going to be off because of period fluctuations so maybe the 2 lb loss is messed up too.

This morning my roommate went to a mountain with a few people for the whole day. Knowing this made me seem more relaxed and in control of my day. Not that my roommate makes me feel otherwise. I had some troubles mixing whey and oatmeal for breakfast and ultimately ended up scratching it all and just going with basic oatmeal.

I expected to have steak for lunch but the only items being served in the campus cafeteria were the usual’s. I went for a grilled cheese and some peas. Highest protein of everything else but also 40 g carbs. I am not regretting the carbs because they made me feel excellent for a 100 calorie blast on the elliptical to get my blood circulating for my arms workout. Pump biceps and triceps wonderfully today. Made every mark I aimed for and can’t wait to go longer in a few days. After the arms workout I hopped back on the elliptical for another 150 calories. Satisfied with this I left and loaded up on some veggies and sunflower seeds.

Only did an hours worth of anatomy readings today but I am happy with that as I took my time and really soaked in the 3 assigned chapters. Dinner was dymatize cereal, which I am not to fond of but has a good amount of protein. I have been getting to dread my whey-in-water shakes lately. I will go for cardio round 2 within the hour then have that shake after that. For tonight’s cardio I am going to bring my copy of New Rules of Lifting for Women. I have yet to do more than skim it since purchasing it way back in august! Hopefully the rest of my night will remain relatively undisturbed. (Picture isn’t really related but I think it is beautiful.)

To try something a little different today I got on the eliptical first. I found from experience that I could do 10 minutes of pretty tough cardio before a strength workout without compromising muscle gain. The quicker fat loss didn’t hurt either. This helped me gain a little more than 1 lb of muscle and lose 3 lbs of fat in a month.

10 minutes on the eliptical later and I went to the barbell rack to warm up shoulders and biceps. On my first set of standing military presses I could really feel how much support from my back I need to initially get the 40 lb bar over my head. My both my lower and upper back are sore from yesterday, but this helped me get more in tune with my posture and form today. I pushed as much as I could out of these, which matters more than the numbers on my chart.

Barbell curls next. Tried to bring every single fiber to activation with these. Tried slowing my negative portion and bringing the bar back up as fast as I could while keeping excellent posture. The rest of the workout consisted of switching back and forth between sets of 15 lb hammer curls and 20 lb lateral and front shoulder raises. By then the endorphines had kicked in and while the room was getting crowded I ignored the other girls. Pure mental power pushed me through my last sets and I was ready to finish the rest of my cardio.

The final 10 minutes of cardio seemed short. I was both on an endorphine rush feeling proud of what I just willed myself to physically do but also feeling very serene and humbled by the snow falling right outside. The huge windows of the cardio room look out to one of the mountains. Great motivation. I imagined this morning that I would be "running into the snow" while I was doing cardio and thats exaclty what ended up happening. I turned off the interval function and went with the snow. Sounds corny but if the snow started coming down hard I would go hard and when it lightened up so would I. At one point I couldn’t even see the mountain so I went all out for about 30 seconds. Now thats what I call HIIT!

Drank 2 Cups Coffee in my room

Water: Used Free Tap Water +1
Cup: Used Styrofoam -1, Re-used Cup 3 times +3
Coffee: Nearly all synthetic ingredients -2, Individual packaging -2
Stirrer: Used Same Plastic Knife 3 Times +3, Will recycle it +1
Ingredients: Used Free Milk +1, Used Free cinnamon +1
Money Spent: $0 +1

Impact Points: 6

Daily Goal: 20 Points

Protein Shaker Cup - $2.44 - If I had only washed the one I got for free, It wouldn’t have rotted and I could have saved $. This time I wont let it go one day without being washed.
Propel Water - $1.28 - Good for me. Have to drop bottled water addiction. Didn’t get to recycle it either.
On The Go Coffee Packets - $2.77 - Delicious and getting their use but too much unrecycleable plastic packaging, not fair trade, has alot of unnatural ingredients. Need to find alternative, safe, fair way to have coffee in my room.
Hydrating Shampoo - $2.94 - Bought for roommate, still hasn’t paid me back.
1/2 Gallon 1% Milk - $2.14 - Next time buy organic milk from the natural food store
Frizz Ease Hair Serum - $7.97 - Worthless seeing how I found my old bottle a few days later.
Body Lotion - $1.88 - Also worthless because that week I got some for my birthday.
Face Scrub - $3.18 - See above.
Gallon of Diet Tea - $2.94 - Delicious and I recycled it.
Mixed Nuts - $8.48 - Lasts awhile. Will recycle the container. Buy nuts from health food store from now on.
Motts Natural Applesauce - $1.62 - Too much sugar, still has sketchy ingredients. Just have real apples.
Toasted Crackers - $2.00 - Sketchy ingredients,junk food, unrecyclable packaging.
Straws - $1.16 - Pure plastic waste. Only used maybe 10 of them.
Napkins - $1 - Could have gotten them for free from the DC
Batteries - $1 - Necessary! Even recycled the old ones. Need to get rechargeable ones when these die.
Hand Sanitizer - $1 - Huge bottle, will last all year. No triclosan in it yay!
Styrofoam Cups - Free - Big pollutants, not sure of safety, unrecyclable. Can be used twice. Next time get compostable hot cups.
Club Crackers - Free - Free is Free! And their replacement will be free!
Peter Pan Peanut Butter - Free. Need to get natural almond butter if/when this huge tub runs out.
Fiber One Bars - Free - High Fructose and Maltose Corn Syrups! Yuk! Stay away. There are other ways to get carbs and fiber.
Gallon of Milk - Free - Again, need to get organic milk from blueberry fields natural store.

Ok so most of the stuff wan’t eco-friendly but nothing was over $8. Anything that needs to be replaced I can either get for free, get an eco-friendly version or get an organic version. In October I can only buy eco-friendly, natural/organic or protein. This wont include the expense of getting my moles removed next week.

Today I reused the backs of all the papers and forms I have accumulated in the past two weeks.

For breakfast I only took as much eggs as I knew I would eat.

I took my own water bottle to the dining commons, and recycled it when I was done.

Last night I was reading articles on the computer until it got pretty late. Sitting next to my open window I could tell it was about to pour. First came thunder, then the light, slow pitter patter of rain landing on the leaves of the tree in the front yard. Then the rain really came down and the thunder continued. While my mom and brother slept in rooms on opposite side of mine, I  got up from my desk and walked to the other end of the house. I opened the doors to the back deck. The air was nice. I stuck my arm out past the slight overhang of the roof. Cool rain, falling randomly against my open palm. I pulled my arm back in. I turned around to look into my kitchen, not that I thought anyone had heard me get up, but if anyone was there, I wanted to show them the rain. Kind of silly since a storm was clearly over our heads, but I really wanted them to feel it too. In the exact moment I turned around a lightning flash lit up the house. I missed it because I had to turn around. I faced the open door again, this time stepping out a little. It was a bit cooler now. I stuck my arm out into the air again. The same random drops hitting my arm and hand.

I returned to my room without drying my arm and without saving what I was doing on the computer and layed in bed. I fell asleep quickly with nothing imparticular in my head.